


Harry Potter and the Bathtub of Soup

by emeebee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 09:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5779900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeebee/pseuds/emeebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short piece about Wormtail's parenting abilities and prowess in the kitchen. (Also Percy's butt obsession. I mean bottom obsession. I mean... Oh gosh.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harry Potter and the Bathtub of Soup

Wormtail pushed a giant cauldron into Harry's field of vision. It was the biggest he had ever seen. Ingredients began to fill the cauldron, some of which Harry recognized - broth, carrots, celery, eye of newt, salt, parsnips (he nodded appreciatively at that addition) - and others which he didn't - what looked like a brick of tar, a sprinkling of what he guessed to be starlight, some lizard toe looking things, and… was that a whole avocado? Harry had never seen a whole avocado before.

All the while, the ominous, black-swaddled baby continued to cry and writhe at Harry's feet. 

As soon as Wormtail lit the fire under the cauldron Harry began to feel nervous. All of Percy Weasley's comments about flimsy-bottomed cauldrons came back at once. Surely a cauldron of such size had to be imported. Surely a cauldron of such size couldn't have come from a reputable cauldron-maker. And surely with such varied and volatile ingredients a sub-standard cauldron bottom would result in a terrible explosion. 

Harry began to sweat - and it wasn't just the heat of the fire. Harry was only yards away from that gigantic cauldron. If something went wrong, the resulting blast could kill him. And being tied up as he was, Harry was stuck in the blast zone. 

Wormtail, seemingly pleased with his now-bubbling stew, walked over and picked up the baby. So maybe he wasn't such a bad father. He cooed at the bundle. 

A high-pitched voice said "is master's bath ready?"

And with a start Harry realized that the voice wasn't Wormtail's. So the baby was talking! Did he say something about a bath? A bath of choking hazards, Harry thought.

And Wormtail flung the baby into the possibly-thin-bottomed-cauldron full of choking-hazard-bathsoup.

So maybe he wasn't such a good father, Harry amended. 

Now if the cauldron blew up Harry would be coated in talking-baby remains as well. Great. This day just kept getting better and better. 

Harry heard no drowning noises coming from the cauldron and was distracted anyway when Wormtail began adding more ingredients. This was a multi-talented baby, Harry thought, assuming the baby was swimming in the bathsoup. 

Wormtail strode close to Harry now, wand out and muttering under his breath. "Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!" And as he said so a fine dust - bone dust Harry assumed correctly - floated up from the grave Harry was tied to and into the cauldron turning the bathsoup a bright, Jolly Rancher blue. 

Back at the cauldron now, Wormtail pulled out a dagger and turned pale. "Flesh - of the servant - w-willingly given - you will - revive - your master." And Harry shut his eyes so as not to watch Wormtail cut off his own hand for the multi-talented baby. Through his eyelids Harry could see that this newest ingredient had turned the bathsoup a cheery, cherry red.

But Wormtail's jagged breath on his face wrenched his eyes open. "B-blood of the enemy… forcibly taken… you will… resurrect your foe." And Wormtail took the same dagger, shaky now that it was in his non-dominant hand, and pierced Harry's arm. He tried to hand the dagger to his other hand and it dropped to Harry's feet. Wormtail seemed not to notice though, perhaps due to the pain Harry thought, and pulled out a vial which he used to collect Harry's blood. 

And when he upturned the vial into the cauldron adding Harry's blood, the bathsoup turned a blinding, sugary white. 

Harry squinted his eyes against the light and somewhere in the back of his mind he noted that this was a very patriotic bathsoup. 

The feeling quickly faded when the light died down and Harry opened his eyes to see a spindly, wiry man standing in the now fog-filled cauldron, naked and glistening and fully grown from his soupbath. 

"Robe me," he rasped, voice now lower than the baby-screech it had been.

Wormtail stood, cradling his stump and pulled the black swaddling over the man's head. 

"I told you I'd be back," he said in a poor but obvious imitation of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And that is the story of how Percy Weasley's obsession with nice, thick cauldron bottoms and hard work at the ministry to crack down on inferior, flimsy bottomed imports simultaneously saved Voldemort and Harry's lives.


End file.
